Darth Vader ranks close to the top of an extraordinary resume for actor James Earl Jones. That’s no small feat for a career spanning seven decades and encapsulating 187 credits on IMDb. Vader’s pop culture prominence coupled with Jones’ standing among the greatest performers of his generation makes instant association easy. Indeed it’s hard to imagine the greatest villain in Star Wars without his booming voice from behind that black helmet.

And yet, it might not be the best villain Jones has played, at least not in part. Mitigating factors make his performance as Vader a shared victory at best, and subsequent actors have put their stamp on the character as well. Another figure on his resume, however, belongs to no one else. Thulsa Doom, the sorcerous cult leader in the original Conan the Barbarian is as strong a villain as his counterpart in a galaxy far, far away. And unlike Vader, Jones doesn’t have to share him.

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From the beginning, the Dark Lord of the Sith was a team effort. Jones provided the character’s voice in the original Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, but his name was left off the credits of the original release and body actor David Prowse was cited alone. It wasn’t unusual, especially since the film was such a surprise hit – and Jones’s name was added to subsequent releases of A New Hope – but he shared credit with Prowse for the remainder of the original trilogy. Add to that the subsequent performance of additional physical actors in later parts -- as well as Hayden Christensen’s Anakin Skywalker, which heavily informs Vader’s character – and the podium gets very crowded.

Doom, on the other hand, is a more self-contained villain, and as such belongs solely to Jones. Writer-director John Milius was able to attract top-notch talent like Jones, Mako and Max Von Sydow by drawing on many of the same mythic notions that George Lucas used to create Star Wars. It came with a good deal of problematic content – the film brims with racist undertones, and casting a black man as the villain opposite the Teutonic Arnold Schwarzenegger is enough to give pause – but there’s no denying the power Jones brings to the role.

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“They say Thulsa Doom is a thousand years old,” Valeria observes as she, Conan and Subotai breach the temple of his cult in search of treasure. The character first appeared in Robert E. Howard’s short story “The Cat and the Skull” as an enemy of Kull the Conqueror. He was heavily associated with snakes and allied himself with the serpent people whom Kull opposed (another red flag in Howard’s work, as such figures are closely associated with anti-Semitism). He’s Stygian, a country ruled by sorcerer-kings who routinely engage in human sacrifice. In Conan the Barbarian, he sets himself up as a living god: leader of a snake cult that spreads quickly through the movie’s ancient kingdoms before Conan and his allies bring them down.

He has all the makings of a walking cliché, but Jones gives him so much more than the base description. His Doom has surrendered to nihilism: forming his religion almost on a whim and viewing the world with a bemused detachment. More importantly, he seeks psychological leverage over his opponents rather than traditional combat superiority. That comes as part of his ability to transform into a giant snake. He can hypnotize his victims with a stare and a few rhythmic phrases: leaving them unable to raise a hand against him. He uses it on Conan’s mother to kill her at the beginning of the film, then tries it again on Conan himself during the finale, and comes very close to succeeding.

That guiding principle gives Doom a distinctiveness that other villains lack, as well as a showdown with the hero like no other. All of it comes from Jones, who takes the character deadly seriously and finds a soul amid his wickedness. The film itself retains a cult status and has aged far better than most of the swords-and-sorcery movies it helped foster in the 1980s. Vader is like no other, but Doom belongs solely to Jones. The character’s more problematic components shouldn’t diminish what the actor accomplished with him.

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